Door tags

A reading into writing challenge - a writing starter activity - or a prompt for character development?

Door tags: hotels use these so that guests can leave messages for the staff. But, equally, messages could be left by others for the occupant to read on his or her return. 'Tidy this room' might be the tag hung by someone other than the room's occupant. So the challenge is to write a short message (or more than one) which might be indicative of a relationship, a character, a circumstance. Which door handle might it be hung from, who writes it - and whom is it for? Clearly, it also has the disadvantage of being a public message, readable by anyone outside the room - even if the door itself is locked.

Writers could think about famous, familiar or fictional people's doors. (You might like to try the inspiration about period rooms from the past from the Geffrye Museum: http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/aboutus/ )Tags could be written to challenge listeners to infer the character, relationship or circumstance. Here are some provocations from literature:

​ThomasHardy, 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles', The Consequence, Chapter 33

Declare the past to him by word of mouth she could not; but there was another way. She sat down and wrote four pages of a note-sheet a succinct narrative of those events of three or four years ago, put it into an envelope. and directed it to Clare. Then, lest the flesh should again be weak, she crept upstairs without any shoes and slipped the note under his door.

Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3 sc 4 - Hamlet going to Gertrude's room (but say she'd stepped out and left a note on her door handle, or Hamlet had had to convey in a door tag what he wanted to say to her...)

Polonius:

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.Behind the arras I’ll convey myselfTo hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home.And, as you said (and wisely was it said)'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother--Since nature makes them partial—should o'erhearThe speech, of vantage.